As attention turns to speculation that May 21, 2011, will be the Biblical day of rapture, Media Matters revisits a litany of fringe right-wing media figures who foretold that President Obama might just be the Antichrist - the latest in a long line of world leaders presaged as "the beast."

Two recently released polls show that an increasing number of Americans believe the falsehood that President Obama is a Muslim. According to the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of people who believe this false claim cite the media as the source of that information -- and, indeed, the right-wing media have incessantly promoted this lie.

Glenn Beck has been having a field day trying to connect incidents in which President Obama encountered common insects and rodents in an attempt to build the absurd suggestion of a meaningful pattern.

On his June 23 Fox News show, Beck went on about a swarm of bees that inexplicably gathered at the White House one day in May, a fly that landed on the president's face and a rodent that approached a podium at which Obama was speaking. He concluded that "the president's ability to attract rodents and insects is kind of creepy":

BECK: This president has a problem with flies landing on him. Then we had the bees that were swarming the White House. And then, I don't know if you saw this -- do we have the rodents? Here's the president giving a speech and the little rat running -- watch this. OK. I don't know if he's Doctor Doolittle or what exactly. Do you remember this from the live interview? I've never seen that before. Hello. Yes. OK. Now flies landing on his mouth as he's speaking yesterday. I'm not sure what to make of it. Might be that there's a lot of BS and flies are -- but the president's ability to attract rodents and insects is kind of creepy.

In recent days, Beck has repeatedly said that "the bees know" something. On his radio program today, Beck and his crew stated, "The bees know. They do. They clearly -- the flies even know. Notice how they land on the president?" Beck said that flies "just spookily crawl around his face without him even really noticing it." And Beck has even started selling t-shirts that say "the bees know" -- vaguely suggesting that these isolated incidents constitute evil omens.

Beck reportedly said he was "completely joking," but is that what his audience will take away?

On their June 25 radio program, Pittsburgh hosts Rose Tennent and Jim Quinn read a listener's email that speculated Obama may be "evil," or an "enemy of the USA," citing evidence from Beck's June 23 Fox News show. Tennent then asked: "Isn't there something ... weird about that? Like all the insects and the rodents come out for this man, or something. Like they're attracted to him. You know like those devil movies ... Like they're attracted to the devil or something." Quinn then referred to a scene in The Passion of the Christ in which, he said, an "androgynous devil figure was walking through the Garden of Gethsemane and the worm was coming out of his nose."

Although I do admire Obama's ninja-like reflexes when it comes to swatting flies, I'm not about to conclude that Obama is actually a ninja. It's equally absurd to believe that few random encounters with insects and rodents -- in a city with its share of pests, no less -- reveal a pattern of insects and rodents being "attracted to the devil."

The New York Times was forced to issue two corrections after relying on Capitol Hill anonymous sourcing for its flawed report on emails from former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Clinton debacle is the latest example of why the media should be careful when relying on leaks from partisan congressional sources -- this is far from the first time journalists who did have been burned.

Several Fox News figures are attempting to shift partial blame onto Samuel DuBose for his own death at the hands of a Cincinnati police officer during a traffic stop, arguing DuBose should have cooperated with the officer's instructions if he wanted to avoid "danger."

Iowa radio host Steve Deace is frequently interviewed as a political analyst by mainstream media outlets like NPR, MSNBC, and The Hill when they need an insider's perspective on the GOP primary and Iowa political landscape. However, these outlets may not all be aware that Deace gained his insider status in conservative circles by broadcasting full-throated endorsements of extreme right-wing positions on his radio show and writing online columns filled with intolerant views that he never reveals during main stream media appearances.